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The ACO membership is comprised of people interested in rediscovering the music of the Classical period in its original glory: performed with stylistic integrity on original instruments, in intimate settings, and accompanied by explanations which help participants visualize a time and place when the music was first performed. The settings are carefully chosen for their acoustic qualities and their appropriateness for the music. Venues have included intimate halls, museums and private residences where supporters gather to enjoy the music, experience the surroundings, and get to know one another over light refreshments.
Bach, Mozart and Beethoven wrote music in a sound-world that is different from ours today. Within great music, just like the colors of an original painting, we can now see that composers designed the compositions for the nuances of the original instruments.
David Miller, ACO Principal Violinist, playing his 1687 Mattheus Albani instrument.
The ACO invites you to hear the classics of the master composers as if for the first time. The orchestra plays on historic instruments and uses performance techniques of the 17th-19th centuries, giving the music a completely different texture from the sound one hears when the same music is performed with a modern-instrument orchestra. We don’t visit museums to see reproductions of great art, so why should we listen to 18th century masterpieces played on 20th century instruments in large, modern halls? Those who appreciate authenticity will love the American Classical Orchestra experience.
Interested in reviving and preserving the art of playing period instruments, the American Classical Orchestra also fosters the education of musicians and the public in authentic performance technique. Comprised of leading period instrumentalists in the New York metropolitan region, the Orchestra has achieved significant critical acclaim through its performances and its professional recordings in Connecticut and New York City.
The American Classical Orchestra has recorded the complete Mozart wind concerti, using its principal players as soloists. These three compact discs, released as a boxed set in January 1998 by Musical Heritage Society, sold out in the first printing. They mark the first comprehensive survey of the Mozart wind concerti by an American period instrument ensemble and conductor. The American Classical Orchestra has appeared in the Lincoln Center ”Great Performers” Series. In December 2000 the Orchestra made its debut at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in a program specially designed for the exhibition, “Art and the Empire City: New York, 1825-1861.”
